What: One of Brighton’s best-known restaurants has moved from Jubilee Square to The Lanes. In an impressive feat of logistics, The Chilli Pickle closed at the very end of last year and reopened in its new location on Meeting House Lane just a few days later. It is a homecoming of sorts with The Chilli Pickle having started out on the same street in 2008 before it moved to what is now called the My Brighton hotel in the North Laine in 2011.
Who: The restaurant is the creation of husband-and-wife duo Alun and Dawn Sperring. Alun was brought up in Brighton studying catering at Brighton Tech (now City College) before cooking all over the world in top hotels. Originally from Greenwich, Dawn met Alun on a night out in London and ended up following him into the industry working front of house for hospitality giant Jumeirah in Dubai. The Sperrings were early proponents of the new-wave Indian genre, creating an experience that was, in many ways, the antithesis of the bog-standard curry house with a modern-yet-authentic menu that largely eschewed obvious Anglo-Indian dishes.
The food: Given the tight turnaround, Alun is keeping things simple by focusing on the tried-and-tested dishes with which The Chilli Pickle made its name. But that’s not to say the menu is in any way comparable to a standard UK Indian restaurant, with the pair retaining their knack for striking the right balance between the (fairly) familiar and the exotic. Smaller dishes include Chettinad coconut hot wings; venison samosa, Madras ketchup; and cauliflower Manchurian while larger dishes include Old Delhi-style butter chicken; Hyderabadi peanut and aubergine curry and the restaurant’s legendary Luknowi oxtail nihari. The Chilli Pickle will continue to offer a sharing feast for £39 (or £36 for the vegetarian version) as well as its famed £18 curry set lunch. Once things are settled Alun plans to shake things up with new menu options, many of which will be based on dishes the couple have sampled on their yearly research trips to the subcontinent.
To drink: The Chilli Pickle’s liquid offer echoes the food menu in that it’s something a bit different. The selection is as expansive as it is creative featuring a large range of non-alcoholic coolers, gin and tonics, beers and cocktails. The latter includes The Chilli Pickle Martini (vodka, arrack, rice milk wash, curry leaf, chilli, lime, cardamom bitters); Desi Cola (Five river premium Indian rum, cola, orange, cinnamon); and Mr Singh’s JWB Punch (Johnnie Walker Black, Kings Ginger, pineapple, bitters). Still wines start at £6.75 for a 175ml glass.
The vibe: The third iteration of The Chilli Pickle (fourth if you count the Sperring’s short-lived Guildford outpost) has a similar look and feel to the My Brighton site. In fact, many of the fixtures and fittings have been recycled from the former site including The Chilli Pickle’s famous life-size cow (which partly explains how the pair managed to get back up and running so quickly). Split into multiple seating areas - the site is three former retail units combined - the space is a little smaller than what the pair had in the North Laine but has a similar number of covers as well as a dedicated takeaway and delivery counter (the restaurant takes in excess of 100 delivery orders on busy nights). Positioned on one of the key entry points to The Lanes, it’s arguably in a better location with the rent understood to be a good deal lower to the previous site. Design details include a herringbone-patterned tiled floor, pastel shades, exposed ducting, original brickwork and hand-painted signs. An upstairs private dining room will launch later this year.
And another thing: The sadly unsuccessful expansion play in 2018 with the Guildford site put the pair in, well, a bit of a pickle, with the business falling into administration in 2019 before being brought out of administration by the Sperrings, their then landlord My Hotel founder Andreas Thrasyvoulou and a consortium of new investors. None of this really affected the underlying commercial viability of the Brighton site – it remains one of the city’s busiests and most successful restaurants – but the ravages of pandemic made things even more tricky for the pair. However, following a tough period - and with a little help from their loyal Brighton fanbase - The Chilli Pickle has bounced back with the move coinciding with the pair regaining full control of the business they set up all those years ago. The future looks bright for one of the seaside city’s most cherished places to eat.
6-8 Meeting House Lane, Brighton BN1 1HB
